I'm new to silent pcs, or building PCs at all, so I suspect it is better to ask for comments in here. Be gentle with me!

As I'm moving house soon, my other half has said I can use the "family room" as a game/media room, which clearly means buying a new PC. As I'm on gardening leave at the moment, I've got the time to build my own system, and save a bit of money at the same time. The PC will be plugged in an HD (1080p) TV and a decent surround sound amp.

My requirements are:1. Video of HDMI2. Audio of HDMI if possible just to reduce the mess of cables I will no doubt have3. Decent audio quality to make use of the sound system.4. 3D gaming. I don't need to play the latest games (I'm currently playing Skyrim) but in 18 months time I'll be playing this years games so I'd like a GPU that will last me a while5. Watching movies from Blueray/DVDs6. Streaming movies either from my NAS drive or over the internet.7. Once its built, I want to avoid having to tinker with it, particularly as my daughter will be using it and I can't expect her to check cpu temps or adjust fan speeds.

I'm not particularly wedded to any component and would be happy to change if people think it makes sense.

My budget is around £1000.

Apart from general comments on the components I'm worried about whether:1. I've missed anything (eg do I need a second fan on the case?)2. Are there little bits and pieces I need to buy to get it all working, eg cable ties. I wouldn't like to order it all and then discover I need something else.3. Is there any reason why this wouldn't all fit together? I've checked what I can and it looks ok to me.

TJ08-E front fan, FM181 is not the very quiet even under low settings (900rpm), depending on how mcuh noise you aiming, you might need to undervolt it, I have mine with Zalman Fanmate2 and reduced to 600rpm where its tolerable for me, but still not silent, when the room is completely quiet i can still hear it, but i feel its good enough for me. If you wish to do it via mobo, the Gene V is suppose to able to control PWM and 3pin fans via FanXpert 2 (the mobo you chose only has the standard fanXpert0.... but i never tried it, my GENE IV cant, so i had to undervolt it via the fanmate.

About your queries,

1) Extra fan its up to you, i did add it, and really nice combo with the HR02 as the heatsink ends very close to the back, weather its needed or not, idk, never tried it without, the frontal fan creates a lot of positive preasure so air will go out even without a fan. Its up to you if want or not the fan. I guess try without see how are your temps and decide from there.

2) i would suggest a fanmate for the frontal fan, or your prefer way to undervolt it.

3) In my case the HR02 is very very close to the GPU, if i dont use the hdd cage the gtx580 weight will make it touch, but the Mugen 3 is a smaller heatsink so i think you should be fine. Not sure what hyperX are you buying, but the standard should be fine, tall heatsink might interfere with the fan or in case in the future you fill the hdd cage, so standard or low profile memory is recommended so you avoid this issues.

About the GTX670, i would try to get Asus (direct CU), MSI (twinfozor) or Gigabyte (windforce), they seem to be the ones that are the quiestest and still perform really well.

2. Audio of HDMI if possible just to reduce the mess of cables I will no doubt have. 3. Decent audio quality to make use of the sound system.

Well, you can have audio over HDMI if you let the Realtek chip on the mobo do the work. Then there is no need for the Soundblaster card. Let your A/V system decode it.

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4. 3D gaming. I don't need to play the latest games (I'm currently playing Skyrim) but in 18 months time I'll be playing this years games so I'd like a GPU that will last me a while

GTX670 (@ $400ish), in general, is overkill for 1080p gaming. Take a look at the GTX660 ($200ish) or the GTX 660 Ti($300ish). Take a look at The Tech Report's reviews and their Skyrim benchmark in particular. Lots of reviews linked with noise level testing. Asus tends to be the quietest, MSI comes in second - but has great VRM cooling/tends to run a little cooler.

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5. Watching movies from Blueray/DVDs

The TJ08-E can have a tight fit between the optical drive and the PSU. Be sure to keep this in mind when selecting both.

Two things to stay away from: tall heatspreaders can conflict with CPU cooler and your HDD in this case (so look for low profile version) and there is no need to get 1.65V RAM any more when 1.5V and 1.35V volt options exists at similar specs and pricepoints.

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Disk 1 Kingston HyperX 120 GB Internal SSD

meh. Take a look at Samsung's 840.

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PSU Seasonic x-650

Your stressed load power with a GTX 670 is under 300W, with typical game load in the 250W range. If you drop to the 660Ti or 660, the game load goes to ~ 230W. Take a look at the X-560 or Kingwin LZP-550 (aka Superflower Golden King 550). You could even go fanless with the x-400.

Thanks for those replies - very useful. I agree about the graphics card being over specced and PSU (just me being greedy I guess). Now I've done yet more reading, I think I'll for an Asus GTX 660 TI and the Season x-400 fanless cpu. As the PSU is fanless I'll add the second fan to the case so I might as well buy a quieter 18cm fan as well to replace the supplied fan and keep the noise down (Phobya G-Silent 180mm and NoiseBlocker M12-S2 looks reasonable fans to me)

I'll drop the sound card as well and see how the audio sounds via the mobo. I can always add one later I don't like it.

The Samsung 840 SSD looks fine to me and is cheaper than the Kingston so that's now on the list.

If the HR02 fits, then I think the Murgen 3 will fit so I'll keep that on the list.

I read about the HD vibration and that doesn't look too hard to fix. I've got a spare Windows license so that's taken care over.

All that should bring the price down to easily below £1000 which is welcome news

I think the NoiseBlocker m12-s2 is a great fan, but i would go with S1, i own 7 on my server, and they spinned around 850 (not 750 like the specs says in mulitple mobos) not sure if all are like that or were just a batch, atm my TJ08-E has noiseblocker pwm (not the M12 but the standard) between 800-900rpm and fairly quiet, over that it starts to get noisy, so S2 is like 1250rpm... i think the S1 is a better choice. The fan on the Mugen (slipstream pwm 300-1600rpm) depending on the mobo/software it can be droped around 300rpm where its inaudible, even toward the 600 is still ultraquiet, past 800rpm it start to get noticeble under a quiet enviorement, over that i can hear it always. So thinking on trying to aim not to go over that, i think the S1 is a better match, or another Scythe Slip Stream 120mm x 25mm PWM Mid Speed Fan - (SY1225SL12LM-P) could be an option, as it will match the CPU fan, and since its pwm it could be controlled the same way as the cpu fan (depending on the mobo).

As i said in my case the HR02 almost touches the GPU, i had to use the hdd cage for sustaining the GTX580 and at the same time my GPU is thiking due to the card comes with a backplate, so for me wasnt about touching and shorting... but more not to stress the cpu socket. The Mugen 3 is smaller but not by much in width so it will be close, the GTX660ti is a smaller card, so might not reach the hdd cage for support, not saying it will touch with the gravity on the card, check OCN Silverstone TJ08-E Owners Club thread, it has multiple builds there that might help you get a better idea.

Also check OCN [OFFICIAL] ROG Maximus V Owners Club (not pure on the micro atx version but has some), i saw a build there with Coolermaster212 + 7870 (direct CUII) + PS07 (same case for practical purposoes), and seems to fit fine, i expect similar with mugen 3.

While the frontal fan is not quiet, imo is a good fan in terms of cooling, even at low rpm moves a ton of air (a big strength of TJ08-E is its cooling), so i would test this first, specially undervolted around 500-600rpm is pretty decent. The phobya is suppose to be quieter, i read some when i was deciding what to do, but also narrower and don't have the penetrator style so it wont push as much. As i said i think its better just to install a fanmate2, set the fan to low rpms and this should drop it between 500-600rpm, play with the fanmate for your desired cooling/noise. If you feel it still is too noisy you can swap the fan.

Personally i think its best to invest on a better mobo than the fan mate, like the Asus Maximus V Gene Motherboard, its $60 more (not sure on your side, but you will also save on not needing the fanmate and buying the phobya), it suppose to allow undervolting pwm and 3pin fans, so it should allow dynamically undervolting on the frontal and the back fan, the only thing that im not sure is how low it will allow on the none cpu sockets, as in my case GENE IV it has a cap of 60% on none cpu fans, but a lot of people reported that with FanXpert (software provided by asus to control the fan via mobo) they were able to, some said couldnt, depended on the version, but this is with version 1, now FanXpert2 seems much better, still i havent played with it so i can say for sure, but this is what im betting for a refresh when Haswell is released, and if Gene VI is released. Here is a video for you to check the how it is the FanXpert2, Cool Tech: ASUS Fan Xpert 2 Demo - Take Control of Your Fans and ASUS Fan Xpert 2 Tutorial and Overview

Fair enough. I've no experience of any of them. As the fans are cheap, I think I'll try the S1 and change it later if I need to.

Abula wrote:

As i said in my case the HR02 almost touches the GPU, i had to use the hdd cage for sustaining the GTX580 and at the same time my GPU is thiking due to the card comes with a backplate, so for me wasnt about touching and shorting... but more not to stress the cpu socket. The Mugen 3 is smaller but not by much in width so it will be close, the GTX660ti is a smaller card, so might not reach the hdd cage for support, not saying it will touch with the gravity on the card, check OCN Silverstone TJ08-E Owners Club thread, it has multiple builds there that might help you get a better idea.

After yet more digging around, I did find some people with my mobo and a Mugen 3 heatsink so I think I'll be ok.

Abula wrote:

While the frontal fan is not quiet, imo is a good fan in terms of cooling, even at low rpm moves a ton of air (a big strength of TJ08-E is its cooling), so i would test this first. ... Personally i think its best to invest on a better mobo than the fan mate

I think its a fair point about testing the stock fan first. I'm loath to go for a more expensive mobo though unless I really have to.

As I've got this built, I thought I'd let people know how I got on in case anyone else is searching a similar combo.

I ordered the parts from Amazon, Ebuyer, Scan, Overclockers and Silent PC. All the orders turned up before midday the following day so I can't complain about that.

Everything went together easily enough, even for someone who's never done this before. The ram fitted beneath the heat sink without any problem, which was a relief. The only issues I had were:

1. When I put the HDD in the drive cage, it reached the fan on the CPU heat sink so there was literally no room for cables. May be there was a solution with a bit of thought but I ended up removing the drive cage and put the HDD in the external drive bay instead.

2. The Seasonic PSU comes with more power outlets than cables. I had enough cables for the disks and graphics card but I'm not sure what I'll do if I fit another card that needs power.

3. The blue LEDs at the front of the case are really bright and distracting. I might get some sticky back plastic to cover them and tone them down a bit.

Apart from that it all works great. There is a bit of fan noise from the rear fan, which I can only hear if the room is silent and a hum from the PSU which I can only hear if I put my ear right next to it. As it's already quieter than the Virgin Media V+ box next to it, I'm leaving any sound tuning until I get into the new place.

Apart from that it all works great. There is a bit of fan noise from the rear fan, which I can only hear if the room is silent and a hum from the PSU which I can only hear if I put my ear right next to it. As it's already quieter than the Virgin Media V+ box next to it, I'm leaving any sound tuning until I get into the new place.

What fan did you got for the back? what rpm is it running? did you change the frontal fan?

Would be interesting if you could share some pics, im interested on seeing the clearance on the mugen3 and the video card.

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